ShawNshawN and Fourth Street Fine Art present the first art party of the Chinese New Year in 2017. In this show, the artist looks at the hidden levels in society through his artwork. One of the key works is “303 Signatures” that looks at Charter 08 that has been forbidden in China as one of the most dangerous documents to threaten the Communist government’s hold on power and how they imprisoned one of the authors to 11 years prison for 19 key ideas as he became a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Another work "If Ballots Don't Work, Bullets Do", is a take on Malcolm X, one of the most influential African American leaders in the 1960s that helped pave the way for future hip-hop, black power and eventually Barack Obama’s rise to be the 44th President of the United States, so dangerous he was shot down at age 37.

If ballots don't work, bullets do

​In another work, the artist examines the rise of Chechen and Islamic terrorism with his seminal work “Black Widow in the Garden of Eden”. In this work, the artist examines how Russian brutal oppression of Chechen independence and Saudi oil dollars fed the rise of Islamic terror all over Russia from Stalin up to Putin. The girl anti-hero died at age 20 for Chechnya.

Another work to come out is “Fuck Your 2 Buck Chuck Apple” on the rise of Eminem in an almost all black hip-hop world and the dominance of Apple in music distorting the rights of artists to price their own work outside of 99 cents a record.

Artist:ShawNshawN has been painting over 10 years straight and got his initial start back in 1993 going to school. He studied under Tom Thomas at Indiana University East before moving on to oil painting at the main campus. He studied abroad first in Poland in 1989-90 on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union witnessing the Fall of the Berlin Wall behind the Berlin Wall. This event of extreme fear to elation struck a nerve and led to the eventual Political Pop style shown above. This style is a blend of studying propaganda posters in Communist Poland and deep dive into Islamic calligraphy when studying abroad in Spain during 1993-94. He actively lived through Basque terrorism that year with several attacks on prominent government officials in the city as well as living with a Basque professor to get the low down on regional politics and discuss the finer points of results of the Spanish Civil War. In Madrid he studied Flemish greats like Hieronymus Bosch in the Prado museum or romantic Goya's dark paintings in Toledo and of course, Picasso's Guernica in the Reino Sofia. Later the artist moved to Germany witnessing the elation of reunification of East and West with weeklong Love Parade celebrations that ended the hated Communist police state in East Germany. Another influence was the inward social critique of society in Belgium, where he completed his Masters studying surrealists like Rene Magritte and culminated in a paintings ingredient internship as well. In 2015-16, the artist worked as an Art Advisor Manager of Salon D'Art, overseeing multistate and International gallery exhibitions selling prints of Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Japanese woodblocks,Indian painting and even Impressionist originals under the tutelage of international 20 year gallerist Suleyman Cooke. .The artist today lives in the Bay Area and works in the video game industry drawing inspiration from comics and the darkside of life in his own artwork.

Come join us to celebrate this hidden world that ShawNshawN shares with the world via his art.